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Councillors urged to lessen pain of parking

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

Campaigners in Dún Laoghaire who are opposed to the local authority’s new clamping and pay and display measures have urged councillors to support a number of their proposals to lessen the impact of parking charges on residents and businesses in the area.
Earlier this year councillors voted in favour of introducing clamping and towing, which has been the subject of a highly controversial and lengthy dispute in the county.
The Dún Laoghaire Business Association and the Dún Laoghaire Community Association (DLCA) have long campaigned against clamping and increased parking charges as they maintain the measures would deter shoppers from coming into the town and would place undue restrictions on locals.
The community association has now called for the council to reinstate parking passes for local business owners.
Spokesperson for the association, Ann Joyce, said: “We continue to be concerned about the council’s stated objective to force car clamping on the town centre. It’s bad for residents and it’s bad for local business.”
The association has also called on the council to introduce special parking permits for designated nominees, such as doctors, community nurses and occupational therapists, as well as for local rate-paying business owners.
Blackrock based councillor Barry Conway (FF) has tabled a motion for this week’s meeting calling on the council to reinstate a parking permit for “medical personnel”.
“All businesses in the county pay commercial rates to the council,” he said. “It is only fair that they are allowed to apply for and pay e40 for a parking permit. Local enterprise and business needs support from the council, not obstacles.”
The DLCA has also called on local county councillors to establish a special fund for the proceeds of parking fees and a financial statement published quarterly, as well as the establishment of an independent adjudicator to deal with disputes.
In addition, the community association has urged the local authority to change the pay and display parking hours from 8am-7pm to 10.30am-4.30pm and has called on them to provide more designated parking bays.
They are also demanding that the council provides more designated disabled parking spaces and identify more park and ride sites.
They also say there is a disparity between parking charges in Dún Laoghaire at e2 compared to those in Dundrum at e1 and want “a level playing field for parking charges across the county”.
Ms Joyce said her association would continue to highlight the concerns of our members.
“We are calling on local councillors to support the above objectives by tabling a motion directing the County Manager to amend the current parking regulations, which we believe will benefit our residential and business community,” she added.
A spokesperson for the council said that the agenda for this week’s monthly council meeting includes a number of motions that have been raised by councillors in relation to various parking issues across the county.
“Following the meeting, we should be in a better position to comment,” a spokesperson said.

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